Sierra
by CRebel
Summary: In 1992, Tony Stark is left with a newborn. Her accompanying birth certificate and the blood test he quickly orders point to him and a former assistant named Rebecca Cassidy as the baby's parents . . . but things are a little more complicated than that. Aside from the first few chapters, this story will take place during the movie. Please R&R.
1. Good Mother

Disclaimer: Sierra and Rachel are the only characters I own.

**1992**

Even now that the car was parked, having reached its destination, things were still silent inside of it. That was abnormal.

Then again, the entire situation was abnormal. Of course the car would be silent. It fit.

If things _weren't _abnormal_,_ if everything was just as it should have been, passenger Nick Fury's hand would be tired from having had to periodically reach for the radio's volume knob throughout the entire car ride. That would have been just another part of a never-ending power struggle with Rachel Casper, who would consistently try to turn her classic rock up – "Just a little!" – without him noticing. She would have rolled her eyes at his silent response, probably have called him an old man. Ironically, though, _he_ would have habitually wasted breath pressing _her_ to drive faster for most of the way, and each time he tried she would have given him a serious sideways glance with pale, wide eyes and rattled off about how dangerous driving could be and the kind of care it required. At least once he would have matter-of-factly reminded her of the dangerous things she did on a daily basis for S.H.I.E.L.D., and she would have just smiled in the wry way that somehow made him worry she knew something he didn't, and he would have dropped the topic.

If this had been a _normal _car-ride, there would have been plenty of words said - hers combined in gentle, lilting teases and his strung together as dry remarks that would have brought out her familiarly silent chuckle from time to time. The easy banter would have taken his subconscious back ten years, as it always did, to when Rachel wasn't a grown woman, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best agents - she was the hunting-obsessed kid who had perfected the art of getting under his skin while still drawing out a fondness in him he didn't feel towards a lot of people.

It would have been great, Fury mused now, if this had just been one of _those_ car rides. But, when it came to Rachel, the idea of normal felt foreign to him now. Mostly because of the two-week old baby that was finally asleep in the backseat.

So, the car ride tonight had been silent and solemn. Abnormal.

Since turning off the car, Rachel had been folded over the steering wheel with her arms crossed and her cheek resting on the crook of her elbow, angling her head so she had the perfect view of what lay before them. They were parked sideways in the spacious driveway before an intimidatingly large, sleek-looking gate, the purpose of which was to block unauthorized cars from continuing along the asphalt road that wound gracefully up to the dark outline against the clear sky – the Stark mansion.

Fury sighed at the back of Rachel's head and wondered exactly what she was remembering.

"I'm an idiot." she eventually said.

"Judging by which part of all this?"

Rachel lifted her head and put it back down, this time with her chin on her arm, so she could stare ahead at nothing. "All of it."

Fury took a good look at her profile. The fluorescent lights glaring from either side of the gate washed out Rachel's white face, sparing no tired detail. She was in her late twenties, but she'd aged a decade in the past few months. It was just one of the many signs that made him increasingly afraid for her. He had seen Rachel in a lot of stressful situations, but he had never seen her handle anything like this. He'd never seen her try to force herself to stop caring.

After another stretch of silence, and while carefully watching for a reaction, he leaned forward and said, "Rachel . . . _you do not have to do this_."

She laughed. It wasn't a good laugh. "You sound like Clint."

"He's right."

"Nah . . . he just wants to be the only archer at S.H.I.E.L.D." The joke was forced, as was the smile she tried on for the briefest of seconds as she spoke of her friend. It didn't fit and Fury watched her drop it.

"You can work at S.H.I.E.L.D. and still raise her."

"You know I can't."

"There are agents with families."

"Few and far between." Sitting up straight, she wrapped her arms around her knees. Slowly she twisted to look at the backseat passenger as she whispered, "And I've never met one who's a single parent."

Fury searched his mind, but he couldn't think of any examples to prove her wrong. He found himself sighing. Then he was just sitting there, just watching Rachel watch her child. Her eyes weren't so lifeless anymore. Agent Casper was starting to cry.

Fury said what came to mind. "You love her."

He didn't think she was going to answer. She was quiet for a good thirty seconds. But then, "Damn right I do." Her eyes drifted to her mentor. "But S.H.I.E.L.D.'s all I know. I can't leave it . . . So I'd never be able to give her all of me."

"And you think Stark will?" Fury asked flatly.

"I know what you think of him, Nick," she murmured. "And you're not all wrong. But he has his moments." She tried again at a wobbly smile – she'd always had trouble with learning from past failures - and cleared her throat, gathering her dirty blonde hair behind her head. "Take it from Rebecca Cassidy, _assistant_ to Mr. Stark."

Fury didn't blink. Her out-of-character cover could no longer amuse him, the way it had a year ago. Rachel picked up on that, abandoned the face, and let her hair fall loose again. Her expression went stony as she turned back to the gate.

Silence.

Her voice was low when she spoke back up.

"I'm an assassin, Nick. I kill people. I send arrows through their eyes and make their blood and guts splatter all around. That's not something good mommies do - "

"I am not trying to talk you out of this -"

" - Are you not? -"

" - but I know you, Rachel." Fury gave her a long look that she didn't return. The tears were coming rapidly now. He swallowed and reminded her, in as tender a voice as he could manage, "This will haunt you for the rest of your life. Are you prepared for that?"

Everything was still. Then the baby started crying. Two beats passed, and Rachel said "I have to be" before turning from Fury to open the car door. On her way out, she grabbed roughly for the paper that rested on the dashboard. The birth certificate that didn't even have her real name. The irritating Rebecca Cassidy would be known as Sierra Stark's mother, and that fact managed to stab at Fury now as he watched his protégé take the baby carrier from the backseat and, without closing either of the car doors she'd opened, walk determinedly over to the buzzer on the side of the gate.

Rachel Casper would have been a good mother.

. . . . . . . . . .

It was barely a month later when Agent Casper, alone in her apartment, raised a gun with steady hands and put a bullet through her skull.

Meanwhile, on the TV screen, Tony Stark told the news reporter that his daughter had just started smiling at him. "And that alone," he said earnestly, "That alone really makes me so happy."


	2. His

A.N.: This is the story's first mention of Ezekiel "Zeke" Stane. If you aren't into the Iron Man comic books, you probably don't recognize him, but I actually took him from that part of the IM universe.

**1995**

Sierra had already crawled into her purple-clad bed, per instructions of JARVIS, when her father walked in. The little girl stared at Tony, wide-eyed, as he crossed the room and sat down beside her with a tight smile. "Daddy, where are you going?" Sierra asked worriedly, reaching out to touch the tuxedo her father was wearing as soon as he was close enough.

Tony huffed out a breath. _Here we go._

He gently took Sierra's hand and guided it back down to her side before pulling his daughter's blankets up to her chin. "Daddy has to go to a boring business dinner."

Sierra blinked, her eyes – copies of his own - shining intensely as they reflected the orange light coming from her bedside lamp. "I wanna go!" she exclaimed, reaching up to push back the covers he had just tucked her under.

And thus began the war.

Tony sighed and clenched the blankets. "No, you don't," he told her. "Didn't you hear me call it 'boring'?"

"Sleep is boring, too."

"Touché." He covered her up once again. Her lower lip trembled. "I gotta go because Obadiah is making me," he tried. "Trust me, kid, I'm doing you a favor."

"Is Zeke going?"

"No, Zeke's not going. Obi's making him stay home too – I mean _letting. _He's _letting _Zeke stay home. See? He's bigger than you and he's staying home. Like I said, it's boring. Miserable."

"Then you should stay here, Daddy. . ."

Oh, she was good.

He took her head in one hand and lightly bounced it with each word he said, making her smile in spite of herself. "Obadiah's. Making. Me. Go." He grabbed the closest member of an array of stuffed animals that lived at the head of her bed. The lucky winner was a tiger, and he handed it to her as he said, "I promise, sweetheart, I'd rather stay with you."

She squeezed the tiger and stared at its head for a moment. Tony stroked her brown hair, letting her contemplate and praying she wouldn't turn this into an ordeal. He usually went out before her bedtime at least twice a week, and though she was normally pretty good about it, she had bad nights.

Finally, she looked at him again. "Will you read me a story before you go?" she requested, her voice tiny.

She looked so pitiful, her eyes adopting the "Daddydon'tyouloveme?" look she didn't even know she had perfected. Tony was aware that he was already late, though. His most recent assistant, Pepper Potts, was very on top of things and wouldn't be happy with him for being tardy to the dinner she had so intently worked on putting together.

But Sierra wasn't easy to say no to.

And hell. It was his dinner anyway. He could be late if he wanted to.

"Sure," he told her, and she gave him that precious smile, the only thing about her that had ever reminded Tony of her mother. He really didn't even think about it as Rebecca's anymore, though – this was just his daughter.


	3. Not a Police Officer

**1997**

"Get out."

Sierra had known the boys were coming. She'd seen them out of the corner of her eye five seconds ago. She had kept her head down and continued with her sandcastle, because the best thing to do was ignore them and hope – perhaps in vain – that they would go to one of the sandboxes on either side of her.

They hadn't. And now they were standing over her, and though the sky was grey and the boys didn't cast much of a shadow, Sierra suddenly felt cold.

With a sigh, she tilted her head back and stared at the boys before her. They were not first-time offenders.

The one who had spoken was named Benjamin. Having started school a year late, he was bigger than most of his fellow kindergarteners, Sierra being no exception. The one behind him was James, and though he was significantly smaller than his companion, he was the one with the power. Sierra narrowed her eyes at him.

James was the son of Mrs. Barnum, the headmistress of Nicholson-Cole Day School, which – in the eyes of five-year-olds – made him something of a prince; here, "Barnum" was a name that meant a lot more than "Stark," at least to the children. In fact, the only reason any of the other kids paid attention to Sierra's last name at all was because Mrs. Barnum had tarnished it. Apparently (and much like a few other grown-ups Sierra had met) Mrs. Barnum did not like Sierra's father. Because of this, the woman had told mighty James not to be friends with the younger Stark. When James told the other kids about that, they did what was socially best for them in their dog-eat-dog world and ostracized her as well.

That had been two months ago, right after the start of kindergarten. Sierra now usually spent her recesses alone. She really didn't mind – she had friends out of school, after all. Ezekial Stane was her friend, even though he was three years older. He liked to spend time with Tony in his workshop while Sierra played the piano with Obadiah – Zeke's father – upstairs. Her dad's new assistant Pepper Potts was her friend. Then there was JARVIS, and Happy . . .

So she could handle staying at the edge of the fenced-in playground a couple of times a day, digging aimlessly in the sandboxes that otherwise mainly served as fillers between the blocked-off forest and the main part of the playground. With the more fun, yearly-updated jungle gyms, teeter totters, and swing sets, nobody ever seemed to care that the exiled Sierra had taken claim to the old-fashioned sandboxes. And that was the thing: James didn't care she was here. He just wanted someone to pick on. And she was, for all intents and purposes, defenseless.

Sierra stared at him now, not saying anything. She already knew how this would end, but she wasn't going to make it any easier on him. James squinted back at her, waiting, but it only took a few seconds for Benjamin to grow tired of this method. He gave Sierra a small shove on the shoulder - not hard enough to knock her down, but a clear warning. "Get _out_," he reinforced.

They had done this same thing less than a week ago – didn't Benjamin learn?

In a desperate last move, Sierra looked around her two classmates, past all of the playground equipment and the swarm of kindergarten children crawling over it, until her eyes found the pair of teachers standing by the doors leading into the school. The two women were pretty far away, but they would be able to tell what was going on if they bothered to _look_. They didn't, though. They appeared to be focused on each other, and Sierra clenched her teeth, because that gave her the definite answer that she was, indeed, alone as she turned her attention back to James, crossed her arms, and said, "No."

A second later, Benjamin had one hand on her arm and the other tangled in her hair. He dragged her through the sand, and - too proud to cry out and too small to scramble away - Sierra let him.

He shoved her off the side of the six-inch-high sandbox. She scraped her leg against the wooden edge as she fell onto the ground. The pain and the anger made her hand clench the soft dirt beneath her, and she rolled over and glared up at the kid with as much hatred as she was capable of mustering. He hadn't been so rough last time.

James leaned over enough to see past his wall of a friend and give Sierra a cool look. "Get out next time," he warned cockily.

The girl drew her legs under her and stood up slowly. She looked over her shoulder. The teachers still weren't watching. Her mind whirred as her fists formed.

Sierra had gotten into a fight with Benjamin once before, the first time something like this had happened, and it hadn't ended well – mostly because it wasn't a "fight" so much as it was her getting slapped around. The teachers hadn't witnessed that squabble either, but when Sierra came in from recess with her nose pouring blood, Benjamin and James both vehemently denied her recount of the incident. Mrs. Barnum had signed a note to Sierra's father saying that Sierra had fallen down, and that was the story Sierra had stuck to, because it was easier, and she was old enough and smart enough to understand that her dad had more important things to worry about then who she was having trouble with at school.

"Go away," Sierra heard James order. She snapped her head forward again to see Benjamin tilt his head down a bit, giving her a better view of his cold, menacing gaze.

A second fight would probably be just a replay of the previous one. Although . . . Sierra had gone for Benjamin the first time, which had been a mistake. If today she could dart around him and get to James – the real culprit here, anyway - she could maybe get in at least one quick punch. She would undoubtedly get in huge trouble, but it might be worth it . . .

Her one more second of consideration was evidently too much wasted time, though in this instance James got impatient before Benjamin did. The former heaved a sigh and, in one long move, stepped in front of his friend to push Sierra down, hard.

And she didn't waste any more time after that. Her enemy had done two very stupid things: One, he'd made her even furious; two, he'd put his bodyguard behind him.

Sierra's feet were back under her almost immediately, and she crouched over, steeled to ram her shoulder into the idiot -

"Hey!"

Sierra stopped mid-step and stiffened, as did her two adversaries - the voice had clearly been that of a less-than-happy adult. After an instinctive, disoriented scan of the playground behind her, Sierra realized that the single word had come from the opposite direction, so she whirled, and instantly locked her eyes onto the face of a man standing behind the chain-link fence ten or so feet away from the children.

The man had dark hair and wore a black jacket and sunglasses that completely hid the eyes behind them. He was holding up an ID. "My name's Agent Barton," he said calmly. "I'm a police officer." He nodded at James. "What's your name?"

The boy tucked his hands behind his back and answered in a quiet voice Sierra had never heard him use before.

"James, do you know I could arrest you for what you just did?"

James didn't answer, and things were still for a moment. Then, without a word, the boy turned on his heel and bolted towards the school. It took Benjamin two beats to decide that he should probably follow suit, and when he did, Sierra was fairly sure she saw the man at the fence chuckle.

She was alone with the stranger.

"You okay?" he asked, snapping his wallet shut and slipping it into his back pocket.

"Yeah," she replied. The scrape on her leg hurt, but it wasn't bleeding, and she was focused on the man. As she watched, he reached over his head and wrapped his fingers through the fencing, looking much more relaxed than the stiff, blue-clad police officer that had visited Sierra's class the month before. No, this man didn't look the part. Plus, the badge the officer had waved at the children was a clunky gold thing, not a card like the one the man behind the fence had shown. "Are you really a police officer?"

"I'm close enough." He nodded after the boys before she could question that response. "Do they act like that a lot?"

"Sorta." _Yes._ "James's mom doesn't like my dad."

"Have you told your dad about it?"

"No. He's busy. So's Pepper . . . that's his assistant." She tilted her head, still unsure of what to think of this guy. She knew that grown-ups weren't supposed to talk through the fence like this, but he didn't seem bad. "Is your name really Barton?"

"Clint Barton. You should tell your dad about those boys."

"I already told you, he's busy. What were you doing in there?" She pointed past him, into the dense woods that she saw every day and yet knew nothing about. Maybe she had been missing out on something.

"Oh, I was just taking a walk." It was hard to tell with the sunglasses – she wished he would take them off – but his head was angled in a way that made her fairly sure he was looking past her, at the playground.

She gave him a skeptical look anyway, thinking he might feel it, and refuted, "I've never seen anyone walking through here before."

"Hm. You're pretty smart, aren't you?" His voice wasn't unkind. In fact, Sierra thought there might have been a little smile on Clint's lips, though it was hard to tell through the fence. He hadn't actually replied to her question, but . . . he was calling her smart and he may or may not have been smiling. He certainly wasn't mean.

"Yeah," she soon answered. "My daddy says I get it from him."

"Oh, I bet you get some of it from your mother, too."

She shook her head dismissively. "I don't have a mom."

"No? My mistake . . ." Clint's head angled to the side. Yeah, he was looking at her now. "Hasn't anybody ever told you not to talk to strangers?"

"Yeah," she admitted, "but I'm behind a fence."

"I could jump it."

"I could scream."

Clint chuckled. This chuckle made him seem less out of place, and Sierra decided she liked Clint, and so she sat down on the edge of the sandbox to settle into the conversation. She felt like she should clarify her previous statement. "When I said I don't have a mom, I didn't mean I _never_ had one. Everyone has to have a mom, so they can be born."

"Ah, that's right. You almost had me fooled there." He sounded like he was teasing, so Sierra giggled as she rested her head onto her palms.

"I just meant my mom died when I was a baby."

Clint didn't answer right away, but when he did, his voice has changed in a way Sierra couldn't quite put her finger on. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she replied, hoping she hadn't said anything wrong. She thought about it and then jumped to assure him, "My dad's still alive. Have you ever heard of Tony Stark?"

"Oh, yeah. Don't tell me he's your dad?"

Sierra grinned. "Yep."

"Wow." He paused for a moment, thinking. Then, "Do you like your dad?"

That seemed liked a silly question. "Uh-huh," Sierra said, laughing again. "He's my _dad_."

Clint exhaled. "Yeah . . ." his chin suddenly jerked up. He was looking behind her again, and this time Sierra turned around.

The two teachers on patrol were coming their way. Fast. Other children were staring.

She turned back to Clint with wide eyes. She liked him, but she knew he wasn't supposed to be here. Luckily, he seemed to know that, too. Slowly lowering his arms, he said, "I gotta go, kid," yet stll stayed for another second. His head was pointed back towards her. He sighed again. Then, even as he took his first step back, he pointed a finger at her. "Tell your dad about those boys being mean to you, okay? Even if he's really busy."

Sierra paused, but then reluctantly promised to try, and Clint turned away. She watched with a flicker of sadness; he would have made a good friend. Maybe he would come back tomorrow. "Bye," she called after him, and even though by then he was halfway out of sight, she was pretty sure he saw him glance back at her as he called out a goodbye of his own.

. . . . . . . . . .

He shouldn't have talked to Sierra.

If Fury knew, he would kill him, and finally have an excuse for condemning these visits.

In the six or seven times Clint had checked in on her before, fulfilling what he saw as an obligation to Rachel, he'd never once spoken to Sierra, hadn't even gotten close enough for conversation. He was a stranger to her and to the only family she knew.

But he couldn't help himself this time. Not with those two kids treating her like that.

That had been hours before, and now Clint walked along a street across the city, figuring it was the safest thing to do in case Sierra had given her teachers his description. He could only hope she didn't offer his name; he could avoid arrest, but it would be a hassle.

He'd parked on this sunset-lit street to find a restaurant, but now none of the signs he walked past appealed to him. His mind was occupied. Even as he dodged other pedestrians and at least pretended to look at storefronts, he kept replaying his talk with Sierra.

She was more like Rachel than he'd thought. The kid had her father's dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin . . . but when she'd laughed, looked _happy _. . . it was Rachel.

The sound of her voice, too. And the way she called him out on those couple of things, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. He'd meant it when he called her smart, but it absolutely wasn't all from her father - and he'd almost told her how he knew, almost gone into how her mom was the wittiest person, the most strategic planner, he had ever met.

Clint carefully scanned the street and the buildings pressed against it before he took a crosswalk to the other side. He wasn't here on any sort of mission, but years at S.H.I.E.L.D. had made him habitually careful.

She had told him her mother was dead. She hadn't said anything about being left with Tony before that happened. Did she know?

Honestly, Clint wasn't sure he wanted her to. Whatever she knew about her mother would have come from Tony, and very little of what Tony knew was true. If so much was going to be a lie for Sierra, well, one more lie wouldn't hurt. And she didn't need that feeling of abandonment in her life. Especially without someone who'd _actually_ known her mother to explain it to her . . . how hard it had been on Rachel . . .

Files on Rebecca Cassidy said she had committed suicide, though. Tony had discovered that; he'd admitted it to the press at one point. Sierra would eventually know it, and it would actually be better for her to think that her mother killed herself _after_ she left her child than while Sierra was in her possession, wouldn't it?

It didn't matter. If Sierra wasn't already informed of the fact that Rachel had left her, she would be one day. Clint now remembered that Tony had told the press that, too.

Damn it. Stark should have found a way to cover that up . . .

Clint eventually sat down on a bench outside of a coffee shop and leaned his elbows on his knees, wrapping his hands together in front of him.

She was _so _much like Rachel.

And Sierra would grow up hating her.


	4. Should Have

**2001**

Sierra grabbed the nearest thing. A pencil sharpener on her desk. She ripped it up, breaking the cord from the device, and hurled it across the room at the closed door. It hit with a _bang_ and a high-pitched scream that suggested it was doubtful that the sharpener would ever work again. _"You should have told me!"_ she shrieked at the door, bending over with her fists clenched, teeth together like she was an angry dog. Tears rushed down her puffy face, as uncontrolled as her constant sobs. _"You should have told me!"_

"Sierra," her father called from the other side of the door. He sounded strange. "Sierra, I'm – I'm sorry. Come out, okay? Let's talk –"

"_No!" _Her hand flew to her desk again. Her fingers closed around her new phone, her first phone, one of her dad's special devices. It was just like his. She wound up and chucked it with all her might at the door. It hit dead center, hard, but it didn't break. Of course not. It was her dad's work, of course.

"_I never wanna talk to you again! Leave me alone!"_

"JARVIS," she heard her dad say. "Open the door –"

"_NO!" _Sierra screeched. "_No, JARVIS!"_

JARVIS's normally controlled voice sounded uncomfortable. "Sir –"

"Alright, alright, fine, never mind . . . Sierra, sweetheart . . . I was going to tell you."

"Leave me alone . . ." she choked out. Her throat hurt now. She crumpled to the floor, curling up and wrapping her arms around her head. And she cried.

A lot of time passed. There were no sounds but the pathetic, whining ones that came from Sierra and made her hate herself. Hate herself even more.

Then there was a knock on the door. Sierra took a shaky breath and was about to force out a scream, but it wasn't Tony's voice that came from the other side. "Sierra," Pepper said, gentle and firm, "Please let me in."

The girl hesitated. She wiped her face with her arms, and then murmured, "JARVIS."

There was a faint clicking sound, and the knob turned, and there was Pepper, tall and composed, looking pretty in the blue suit that was Sierra's favorite. She closed the door softly behind her, and the two stared at each other for a brief moment. Then Pepper, in a manner that shocked Sierra because it was so unlike her, got on her hands and knees and crawled over to the Stark heiress. She wrapped her arms around Sierra, and the girl cried again, harder than ever, burying herself into her dad's assistant as she rocked her back and forth. Pepper stroked her hair, her back. "I'm so sorry," she murmured into the little girl's messy hair. "I'm so sorry."

Sierra squeezed her eyes shut, willed herself to stop wailing, couldn't. She kept replaying the TV show in her mind – it had been a biography of her dad on one of the grown-up channels Pepper kept on in the living room.

"It was because of me . . ."

"Shh . . . No, no . . ."

Sierra had been eating lunch. Coconut shrimp with melted cheese. And her picture had come up on the television. A man started talking about her mother . . .

"Pepper," she sobbed. "She . . . she . . . she _killed_ –"

"Oh, honey."

"Dad didn't tell me!"

"I know, he should have. He should have."


	5. Good Girls

**2005**

AC/DC was blasting from the walls. It was the same song Sierra had heard coming from her dad's workroom this morning.

Zeke's garage was the size of a basketball court, maybe a bit bigger, with the same hollow, echo-filled feeling. He had his cars – his babies – lined up by year along the sides of the room, shining like trophies. He always kept his newest vehicle in the center of them all, where he could work on it with plenty of space, and where any visitors who happened to drop in could immediately see it and drown in awe.

Thirteen-year-old Sierra was not one to be awed by such things, however. So, today, as she strolled up beside the central car, a gleaming silver thing she couldn't for the life of her name, she barely glanced at it. The hood was up, and she caught sight of the tip of a brown head of hair. "You hear your new tabloid name?" she called.

Ezekiel Stane leaned to the side, supporting himself on the car and squinting at her as if she were a stranger. He had an oil smudge on his forehead, was wearing a white, sleeveless shirt, and might as well have just fallen out of _Grease. _Except for the part where he was a billionaire. "You read tabloids?" he shouted back." That's not good for a young girl's self-esteem."

"I read the ones that aren't about me," she elaborated, shaking out the magazine in her hands as Zeke slammed the hood and reached for a remote on top of the car. "Especially the ones that _are_ about you . . ." A press of a button and AC/DC went on break. She flattened out the periodical in her hand and displayed it as Zeke came up to her. "Tony Stark 2.0."

The picture, which took up half the page, showed a suited Zeke at a Stark Industries seminar that her dad hadn't been able to make – bad hangover, Sierra was fairly certain – as the Stane prince explained the basics of a "game-changing" new prototype explosive that Tony was designing with his assistance.

Zeke examined the page with a bored expression, conjuring a rag from his back pocket and wiping off his hands. "I read one the other day that called you SiStark," he eventually said.

"_You_ read tabloids on _me_?"

He tossed the rag aside and grabbed the magazine. "This is ridiculous," he muttered, pacing away. "Your dad's eyes are brown, mine are a very dark hazel. He leans toward blondes, I'm more open-minded – we've discussed this, him and I – and I'm going to Caltech, while he, of course –" he whirled suddenly back to her and threw the magazine over his shoulder. " – went to MIT."

Sierra watched the tabloid fly and land in a messy toolbox. She crossed her arms. "And, also, he was fifteen when he went to MIT –"

Zeke threw his head back. "Don't bring that up again. You know what a slacker I am."

"Going to Caltech at _sixteen_?" she widened her eyes. "Damn right you're a slacker."

"You know me, soaring through life on my good looks and charm."

She stepped forward and tilted her head, examining his face, almost a foot above hers. "Your eyes _are_ hazel, aren't they?"

"You didn't know that? And you call yourself my friend."

"I don't call myself your friend."

"What do you call me, then?"

"Zeke. Sometimes Ezekiel. Ezzy comes to mind as well . . ."

"You know the rules - you call me Ezzy, I call you SiSi."

"Ezzy is so much cuter than SiSi – "

"They both beat the hell out of Tony Stark 2.0. and SiStark – no, wait, I kind of like SiStark. . ."

They were both laughing by then.

Eventually, Sierra cleared her throat and nodded at the silver car. "Are you gonna show me what this so-called muscle car can do or not?"

He smiled. "If you're a good girl, I may let you drive."

She stepped even closer, hooking her hands into her belt loops. "You don't like good girls," she whispered through her smile.

His own grin widened and his voice lowered. "Now I'll definitely let you drive."


End file.
